Marina plan is being changed

SANDPOINT - Idaho Department of Lands officials expect to hold a public hearing on a private marina on Lake Pend Oreille at Trestle Creek sometime this spring.

This month's hearing on the 126-slip marina was postponed because developers are modifying the proposal to eliminate a planned breakwater and move docks closer to shore.

The changes were substantial enough to warrant putting the proposal back out for review, said Jim Brady, a senior resource specialist for navigable waters in IDL's Pend Oreille supervisory area.

“The agencies and the public needed the opportunity to comment on that. It was significant enough of a change,” Brady said.

A new hearing date is pending, although Brady said things are tracking toward a late April or early May setting.

Brady said the changes were proposed after project designers met with officials from the Idaho Department of Fish & Game and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The idea is to restore the shoreline as much as possible to its historic configuration.

“That shoreline has been modified by man pretty severely. Those channels were made before the Lake Protection Act and it only created habitat for warm-water fish, which are predators for the ones they're trying to protect in there,” Brady said, referring to bull trout and kokanee.

It's believed the shoreline alterations were originally made to provide safe harbor for boats.

“That's in a pretty vulnerable spot on the lake,” Brady said.

Bonner County commissioners, meantime, are scheduled to conduct a public hearing on the 109-unit condominium development the marina will serve on Thursday, March 6. Hearings on the housing development's zone change and conditional use permit are set to begin at 1:45 p.m. in the former Federal Building.

The resort and marina proposed by Pend Oreille Bonner Development have drawn a mixed reaction from the community. Some, including members of the county Planning & Zoning Commission, have hailed it as a top-shelf plan, while others question its overall impacts on wildlife and public access resources.